This issue includes new 2023-24 data and analysis on Australia’s forestry imports and exports.

Information on trends in the use of debt financing provides context for understanding longer term changes in farm financial performance and the drivers of future productivity growth. This report includes analysis of recent developments in agricultural lending using data provided by the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority, the Reserve Bank of Australia, the Regional Investment Corporation and ABARES farm surveys.

The implementation review assesses the extent to which the requirements of the 2018 Commonwealth Fisheries Harvest Strategy Policy and Bycatch Policy have been met.

This report uses an economic framework to examine the role of government in tracking Australia’s agricultural exports from ‘paddock-to-plate’.

These datasets provide the spatial representation of the legal regime in which land is owned, leased, reserved or unallocated to a defined purpose in Australia. They have been provided to the Australian Bureau of Statistics as an input to the National Land Account as part of the national approach to environmental-economic accounting.

ABARES has conducted several previous studies into the value of agricultural R&D investment and the returns this has generated. This report builds on these analyses and uses our latest approach for measuring Australian agricultural R&D.

The Australia’s State of the Forests Report: Synthesis 2023 presents a summary of the latest information describing the many environmental, social and economic values of Australia’s forests and includes 16 updated indicators of sustainable forest management.

This report presents the results of the 2021-22 wood processing survey and shows the number of sawmills operating in Australia has continued its long-term decline. Despite this, wood input volumes have been relatively steady over the last decade. The report also provides data on timber output volumes and prices, costs, employment, and issues facing the sector.

The average farm cash income for dairy farms in 2022–23 was estimated to have been $461,000 per farm - 34% higher than the previous year, and a record high in historical terms.

ABARES has today published the 29th edition of the Fishery status reports - an independent evaluation of the biological and economic status of fish stocks managed solely or jointly by the Australian Government. Of the 102 stocks assessed in 2023, there were 3 stock status changes.